牛皮癣(银屑病)

A mother
brought her son who has psoriasis to see me. He had psoriasis for half a year
and has been treated by Singapore National Skin Centre and was given steroid
cream to apply. His psoriasis did not get better.

The mother said her
son is only 10 years and likes to eat Laksa in school. He has been eating
Laksa every day for one year. One day, a few red spots appeared on his
hands and slowly developed into psoriasis. She said it could be the toxin
(the shrimp in the Laksa) that causes the psoriasis to flare up.

I prescribed
herbal medicine for her son. I also gave him a few types of cream to
apply on his skin. He had stopped using steroid and the psoriasis slowly flared
up all over the body. Both ears were red, swollen and unsightly.
Patches of psoriasis were red like roses on his back, chest, hand, elbow and
legs. The psoriasis on his scalp was bad.

The mother said all
his school friends avoided him and did not want to play with him for fear that
it is contagious. I told her to go to the school to ask the
teacher to inform the class that psoriasis is not contagious and it will not
spread to other people. This way the morale of the child will not be affected.

After taking my
medicine for two months, his psoriasis slowly began to get darker
and better. The center of the psoriasis became normal skin again.
But the outer areas around the psoriasis were still red.

The mother helped
to apply cream on his body every day and made sure his son eat healthily.
I told her to bring her son to the seaside to swim and cover the
son’s body with mud after swimming. I also asked her son to lie under
the sun to do sun bathing. They took my advice and did it every week.
Faithfully, the son took my medication and used my cream to apply on
the psoriasis.

Slowly, the
psoriasis almost disappeared (95%). So they thought that it should
get cured soon. They were slackening in their regime.

One and half months
later, psoriasis slowly flared up again. This time it was not so serious. It
flared up on his back, hand and leg. The psoriasis was much smaller and the
flaking was much less. She observed that whenever his son fell and
hurt himself, the wound would soon become psoriasis, but this time the wound
would only form a scar and heal by itself.

The mother realized
that each time after her son ate chicken meat, milk, pork
etc., his skin would show more redness the next day. So, she gave the
son more vegetables and fruits. The mother also noticed that whenever his
son skates for a long time, the next day his psoriasis gets better. She
concludes that exercise is good for his son. She further
noticed that the psoriasis around the lids of his eyes slowly disappeared
after he skated for three hours.

The
mother make sure her son take my medicine faithfully and apply my
cream as well as following the regime viz. go swimming, sun
bathing etc. Slowly, her son’s psoriasis got better and
never flared up again.